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Effort Seeks to Revive Sandplain Flora

Ever since cultivation began on the Vineyard, farmers have tried to
enrich the nutrient-poor soils of the Island's sandplain
grassland. Now scientists are beginning a five-year experiment on the
Island trying to achieve the exact opposite.

At a cost of some $700,000, The Nature Conservancy and Marine
Biological Laboratory will try various ways of de-enriching the soil on
70 acres of sandplain at Katama, with an eye toward reestablishing the
grassland ecosystem which formerly existed there.

The project was formally kicked off last Friday, at a dedication
ceremony for the Bamford Preserve at Herring Creek Farm, named for Roger
Bamford, an Island summer resident who was instrumental in acquiring the
land six years ago and who is substantially funding the research.

But preparatory work has been under way for several months already,
with 180 small plots laid out for testing various ways of removing
nutrients from the soil.

The land abuts the Katama air park and another large block of
state-owned grassland, making it the largest contiguous area of such
grassland in the northeastern United States.

Sandplain soils, explained Matt Pelikan, Islands program director
for The Nature Conservancy, are very short on nutrients. The native
vegetation is therefore highly adapted to live without much nitrogen,
calcium and other elements.

"Because of those adaptations, they don't really benefit
when more of those nutrients are present. But other plants do, so they
are at a competitive disadvantage compared with things like agricultural
weeds and grasses," Mr. Pelikan said.

"So in order to restore native vegetation we need to get the
soil chemistry back to its former state," he added.

The purpose of the research is to find the easiest and most
cost-effective way to do that, and researchers plan to try several
different methods and combinations of methods.

"Among the things we will try will be growing a heavy feeding
crop like corn, which takes up a lot of nitrogen, and then just chopping
off and removing it," Mr. Pelikan said. He continued:

"We'll try mixing in carbon in the form of sawdust or
wood chips. When you increase the amount of carbon, the microbial
activity changes in the soil in way which results in less nitrogen being
available for plants. It's a way to manipulate the microbiology.

"We'll even try something as crude and straightforward
as removing about a foot of topsoil and exposing soil which is less
enriched.

"We'll try about six or seven methods, and monitor them
intensively, seeing what seems the best way to do it.

"There will be multiple replicated treatments spread across
the area. Hopefully there will be enough of an experiment here to
generate really statistical results."

The aim is to refine techniques which could be used in similar areas
of previously farmed sandplains from Long Island to Cape Cod, to
develop, as Mr. Pelikan described it, "something new for the land
restoration tool box."

Initially the nonnative species would be reduced by simply tilling
the soil, but it was hoped that once the site returned to its natural
state and periodic burning continued, the native species, which are
highly adapted to poor soils, fire and high levels of salt, would enjoy
a competitive advantage.

The Katama air park sandplain grassland, which was protected about
20 years ago, is considered one of the best examples of coastal
sandplain grasslands in the northeastern United States and was named one
of the 40 last great places on earth in a conservation initiative by The
Nature Conservancy.

"It is an exceptional ecological resource with many rare
plants and many associated rare insects. And just across the road is
some state-owned land which is also really good sand plain habitat. So
we're filling in and expanding these two existing sites, hopefully
making a much larger ecological whole of roughly 300 acres," Mr.
Pelikan said.

Rare and endangered plant species which scientists hope will benefit
from the restoration include New England blazing star, sandplain flax
and Nantucket shadbush. Along with them come various associated insects
and it is hoped some vertebrate species including grasshopper sparrows
and short-eared owls.

Mr. Pelikan stressed that nearby land still under agricultural use
also is important to the ecological big picture.

"We don't believe in restoring agricultural soil just
willy nilly," he said. "Agriculture plays not only important
social and economic roles, but also important ecological ones. Ag land
is really important foraging area for a lot of kinds of wildlife.

"We think this will serve as a good example of how varying
kinds of land use - conservation of different kinds, private
ownership and management can add up to a very productive matrix which
protects rare things while also allowing other activities to go
on."